I'm certainly leaning toward the GA-790FXTA-UD5 by Gigabyte for the sata 6Gb/s & USB3. But the 890GX boards have that too. I have an Nvidia Graphics solution right now but will most likely be upgrading that shortly after the build and I don't care if it's ati or nvidia at this point. SLI / Xrossfire is always a possibility but then I said the same about my current setup when i build it.. and never took the plunge... Which solution offers the most performance currently?

And now for the unknown... 890FX:

Crosshair 4 Xtreme..Crosshair 4 Formula..not to mention the MSI, BioStar, and Gigabyte offerings that I believe are coming soon...

Does anyone know how long the wait would be if I did wait on these technologies to be released?

I am also looking for suggestions, I am not going to go i5 or i7 because of the price point on them.. as much as i'd like the performance from the 920 i7

I want a Gaming system i want Crisis warehead @ 1080 at High to Max settings, is this possible with the AMD platform. And Upgradability to HexCores is important as well.. is the 890GX & 890FX the only options for these hexCores?

Hi, well I can say the GA-MA790FXTA-UD5 is a rely good board and you can't go wrong, as for the 890's well personally I don't like that they have the on board graphics so I'm going to what to see what comes out before I do another upgrade.

Hey DL13, thanks for the response.... when you say the 890's you are referring to the GX? Correct? They are the equivalent to the 790gx with the IGP.

I feel the same way.. I think I would be shorting my self with a lesser product in terms of performance when it comes to gaming and such...

On the other hand I need to do this upgrade fairly quickly... out of necessity. But I know what ever I upgrade to will be what i use for at least the next three years or so... in the hopes of upgrading GPU / Processor / Ram to keep upto date with the industries forward momentum.

So I think the 790fx is a better product for what I want to do... but the 890gx have support for the newer technologies such as USB3 and Sata 6Gb/s and Hexcores. Hexcore upgrade-ability being the most important of these three!

Are there any 790FX boards that are projected to support the hex cores and be able to take full advantage of them?

Thanks again!

Also is there anyone that can make an assessment as to the type of performance gain i will get from upgrading to any of these mobo's listed above from my current CPU / MOBO / RAM config in reference to Gaming and such? I mean will it be a significant gain from upgrading these core components or will I not see a serious difference until the graphx card upgrade happens?

Thanks!

*EDIT* just read some info on the web that the new Hexcores will be backwards compatible with the 790FX and AM3 board and some AM2+ boards... looks like 790FX might be the way to go.. initially anyway... lol and hope a bios update puts my board in the hexcore support pool!

Apoptosis wrote:The 890GX boards are great and hard to beat for the price and feature set...

Good point, So would you suggest these over the GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5? And if so which one out of the ones i listed or any others you may know of that would be a good fit?

I'm thinking that the 890FX's are gonna debute @ the $250 range. That's what I bought my now aging Gen1 Crosshair for when it was released. I'm getting news that they should be out next month April 2010. Anyone heard similar rumblings?

890 series show better results in 4k random writes and slightly better overall sata performance than the 7 series. (not by much, but drivers might improve it more)You loose access to "ACC" to unlock the core(s) with the new 8 series, but ASUS and proly others have found ways 'round this.

To be honest, there's no real difference. If it was me, I'd go with the 7 series if it's noticeably cheaper and put the extra cash into something else.If prices are comparable, then I'd go with the 8 series; just 'cause it's newer and has more potential due to driver and BIOS upgrades.

kenc51 wrote:890 series show better results in 4k random writes and slightly better overall sata performance than the 7 series. (not by much, but drivers might improve it more)You loose access to "ACC" to unlock the core(s) with the new 8 series, but ASUS and proly others have found ways 'round this.

To be honest, there's no real difference. If it was me, I'd go with the 7 series if it's noticeably cheaper and put the extra cash into something else.If prices are comparable, then I'd go with the 8 series; just 'cause it's newer and has more potential due to driver and BIOS upgrades.

Hey Kenc ... Long Time.....

so what about the hexcore debacle... would you say I'm ok in a 7series FX in reference to that... would there be some added benefit to waiting a month for the 8series FX? I mean you can get the aforementioned Gigabyte 890gx for around 150 and as I said I think they're gonna release the 890FX's at around $250. Everywhere i look on the internet they're saying that the 890's are going to allow better utilization of the hexcores when they come out in April. even the last sentence in the review for the gigayte 890gx hints at this here --> http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1236/15/

What do you think... I mean my main concern is performance... I'd be willing to spend a little more now for better future proofing.

Now that Asus looks worth getting and it's a FX. Since the 890FX are out or very shortly to come out go with the 890FX, unless you can't afford it than the 790FX. My post earlier was referring to the 890GX.

Yea that board looks sick right?! That one is the Crosshair 4 Formula which is basically te Crosshair 4 Extreme Sans-some voltage and electrical options.I think I'd want the Extreme... but I'm not sure just yet... I think I'm gonna try and stick it out until the 890FX's are released!

i'd keep your 2x2 kit and call it good (2x1 kits aren't really any good, even high end DDR3) 4GB is enough for 90% of users unless you want to use all Adobe applications at once, at which point you'd need 12GB

a 5770 is a powerful card, i see no need to upgrade it, as even a 3.4GHz quad would clearly be a bottleneck(AMD OR Intel) pour any extra cash into a CPU

i'd keep your 2x2 kit and call it good (2x1 kits aren't really any good, even high end DDR3) 4GB is enough for 90% of users unless you want to use all Adobe applications at once, at which point you'd need 12GB

a 5770 is a powerful card, i see no need to upgrade it, as even a 3.4GHz quad would clearly be a bottleneck(AMD OR Intel) pour any extra cash into a CPU

Hey Skier, thanks for the response... I'm considering the phenom because I'm not gonna upgrade my MOBO yet I have a Gen1 Crosshair... the 2x2 kit isn't purchased yet.. so it would be at a cost ($140 @ newegg ).. if you feel that 4GB is enough should I just stick with the 4x1 kit i have right now? I am a Graphic/web designer / Web developer (mostly Flash web-based Apps) so at any given time I could have flash, dreamweaver, photoshop & illustrator open at once. Doing this with my current setup I notice serious lag after about an hour of work... which is most likely caused by the scratch disks being filled.

Do you know of any supported more current CPUs for my board? On the Asus site the CPU Supported list stops @ the x4 9950 but I can't find that ne where.For instance would this work ing my Crosshair:

I'm of the opinion that the upgrade to your current system you are considering is not worthwhile.

If budget constraints are preventing you from building a new system as described in your original post, you might consider building on a 790x motherboard (unless crossfire is a must have). You would have a lot more CPU options.

I would suggest going with a proc with C3 stepping. The C3 revision model numbers end in "M" or "MBOX". The 125W Phemon II 965BE is the C3 revision of the 140W C2 stepping version. Lower TDP means easier on the electric bill, less heat, and/or higher potential overclocking headroom.

Personally, I am waiting for the 890FX boards to become available. They should be released any day now (today by some accounts). I almost pulled the trigger on a GA-790FXTA-UD5 build but the 890 boards were coming out and I wanted to see some comparative benchmarks and price drops. Performance increases with current BIOSes and drivers are minimal from what I've read.

Just scored on the MSI 790FX GD90 board, was closeout deal at microcenter, they also had the phenom b555 3.2 processor for 87.50 with 40 bucks off any compatible motherboard! For the price and my needs this will be a bitchin rig for the dough, especially after I unlock cpu and get a quad out of it.. Was out the door with tax for 175.00